Kanye West has been on a confusing—but possibly transformative—mission to change the music industry. En route to do this, West had to cross paths with one of music's biggest personalities and critics, Charlamagne tha God.
During a recent episode of his Brilliant Idiots podcast with Andrew Schulz, Charlamagne revealed he had a recent conversation with 'Ye, saying he urged the artist to tell the full story when depicting his struggle with Def Jam and Universal records.
"I spoke to Kanye this week," Charlamagne said per HotNewHipHop around the 28-minute mark. "And like I told Kanye, I hope that this conversation you're having isn't a self-serving conversation. I said, 'Yes, very true, these record contracts are exploitative. But what you're not telling people is that you negotiated with Def Jam/Universal four different times. And you chose the money over your masters every single time. And you're not telling people that you own the masters of Yeezus and every album of yours after that. And you weren't telling the people that you owned the artists on G.O.O.D. Music's masters as well, at least half of them.'"
Kanye's recent tirade has been aimed directly at the Def Jam and Universal. The rapper made his grievances public with a series of tweets explaining that he doesn't own the masters to most of his albums before sharing his contracts and lawyer's advice with the timeline. Although the cause is noble, Kanye's antics have been littered with oxymoronic statements and behavior like some of his previous rants. Mainly, the fact he's responsible for at least 50% of the G.O.O.D. Music roster's masters. To eliminate this, 'Ye publicly announced that he would be returning these masters to his artists.
Also, people are also confused as to why Kanye would continue renegotiating with Def Jam/Universal and not leverage himself to regain his masters.
"It's like yo, if you're going to have this conversation, tell the whole truth," Charlamagne continued. "Put it all on the table. If you took the money over the masters cause you wanted to do something, you wanted to buy a house, you wanted to stunt, who knows—but you did. So let's have that conversation. And I told this to him. He said slavery is a choice. People can flip those words on you and say signing these records deals is a choice too. I just want him to have the whole conversation."
Watch Charlamagne talk about Kanye West's fight against the music industry above.
